VIP tour offers a close-up of Universal Studios

Universal Studios Hollywood tour guide Bobby Machlin gives a history of various cars used in movies to folks going through the VIP Experience tour. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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People on the VIP Experience tour can walk around the "War of the Worlds" movie set. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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San Diego brother and sister Keller and Sophia Elswick have their picture taken with ET in the Universal Studios Hollywood prop house. Their family took the VIP tour during spring vacation. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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A group of 12 boards the trolley for their VIP Experience tour. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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The tour's price tag includes breakfast and lunch as well as broader access to Universal Studios' sets and departments. Chef Adrian Ceja prepares food such as sliced beef, shrimp, smoked salmon, vegetables and fancy desserts during the lunch break. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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Some of Ceja's fancy deserts. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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Tour-goers wander the city street sets used for movies and TV shows. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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Folks get close to the action of the "Fast and Furious" attraction. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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April Chapman and Jason Balsamo of Chicago load their plates at the lunch buffet. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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Tour guide Machlin snaps a photo of Chapman and Balsamo in front of a crashed plane prop on the "War of the Worlds" movie set. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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Machlin leads the tour group through one of its up-close-and-personal experiences on the Universal lot. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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A view of the lunch buffet, included in the $299 ticket price. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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Chapman and Balsamo get a closeup look at movie props. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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The prop house features a collection of old wall phones. VIP Experience tour-goers get to see such items, which are off-limits to people taking Universal Hollywood's standard tour. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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A spin on the "Jurassic Park" ride is part of the VIP tour experience. Members of the Elswick family, from San Diego, take their turn in the front seat. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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The "Jaws" attraction gets right in tour-goers' faces. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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Barry Elswick of San Diego takes a look at the desert choices during the lunch break. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

Universal VIP Experience

What: Private behind-the-scenes tours of Universal Studios Hollywood

How much: $299

Jason Balsamo and April Chapman are beaming as they pose for a photo on the steps of the courthouse on the back lot at Universal Studios Hollywood. They're wearing matching "Back to the Future" T-shirts, which should explain why April later says that her heart was beating so fast she almost felt faint.

That building, you'll recall, is the centerpiece of Courthouse Square, which served as the heart of Hill Valley in the Michael J. Fox time-traveling trilogy of "Back to the Future" films.

But look closer at the first sentence. Anything seem unusual or different? Perhaps this bit: “On the steps.”

Maybe you’ve been to Universal Studios and taken that much-loved back-lot tour – anyone ever invited you to hop off your tram and mosey around the courthouse or the square? Probably not, though it’s been available off the menu for folks in the know who were willing to spend a bit more on their Universal tour.

Now, though, Universal Studios is making sure everyone knows about its Universal VIP Experience, and all that this tour includes, from hopping on and off the tram to walk around the back-lot sets to touring the costume department and prop warehouse to wandering through a set on a soundstage where one of the many TV shows constantly in production at the studio is shot.

It’s not cheap – $299 a person makes this a special occasion ticket – but for the dedicated Hollywood fan it offers plenty. Not sure whether it’s for you? No worries. Come along as we share the tour we took and tell all about it.

READY, SET ...

Go! Head up the highway to Universal City where you valet park – it’s included in the package – and make your way to the studio tour’s version of a VIP lounge. You’ll want to get there early enough to try the complimentary continental breakfast, all the pastries and bagels, fresh fruit, juice and coffee you want before heading out into the park. Between parking and breakfast you’ve already made up $30 or more of your ticket price, we figure.

Our guide, Bobby Machlin, has worked the Universal Studio tour for seven years. Like all the VIP guides, he started on the regular tram tour, then applied and auditioned and passed an extensive test on moviemaking lore in order to land on the VIP tram, a single car modeled after a San Francisco trolley, which takes us immediately onto the back lot.

We drive by the Bates Motel from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” and up the hill to the plane crash set from Steven Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds” where we stop and hop off for the first time. It’s impressive to see this actual 747 airliner broken into pieces and scattered through a typical suburban neighborhood when you cruise by on the regular tour; it’s much more so when you’re able to walk right up to the jet and see the way the production crew carefully deconstructed it to make it look freshly crashed when Tom Cruise and company emerge from the smoke and devastation.

Machlin, who shares all manner of trivia about the set – the plane was bought for $2 million and trucked in, “America’s Next Top Model” used the set for a zombie shoot a year or two ago – is momentarily puzzled by a hard-to-hear question from two French tourists on our tram. At last it’s interpreted: The crashed jet isn’t what they needed to see, they wryly note, given the trans-Atlantic journey they’ll take the following day.

From there we scoot over to Norman Bates’ home, where everyone poses for photos on the steps, before heading back down the hill through the neighborhood where Wisteria Lane was shot for “Desperate Housewives” but where other famous facades served as houses for “Leave It to Beaver,” “The Munsters” and the sorority house in “Animal House,” too.

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

One of the promises of the VIP Experience is that you’ll get to go where regular visitors – who currently pay $65 for one day, $80 for an annual pass – do not. Our next stop, the Edith Head Building, includes plenty of that, starting on the top floor where the Universal costume department is located.

Stepping off the elevator, you’re immediately struck by a fact that’s easy to forget during most visits to the park. This is, in fact, a working movie studio, and here in the costume department, we’re banned from taking pictures because costumers are busily making clothing for movie and TV productions in many parts of the floor.

Hallways and rooms crammed with racks of clothing, it’s a head-spinning display of costumes. Here’s a long row of wedding dresses, 100 or more, of every design and period. A rack labeled “medieval capes” is followed by a section for Renaissance doublets and Roman tabards. You’ve got your choice of Santa Claus suits and elf costumes. There’s a settlement for pioneer skirts, a testament to the many kinds of biblical robes one can make and wear. Even a congregation of loincloths (though you’d figure a big star wouldn’t have to wear a used one, right?)

Downstairs, we visit one small section of the property, or props, department, where long aisles of floor-to-ceiling metal shelving are packed with objects that can help set decorators and designers create any time or place. Hundreds of ashtrays, neon signs, phones from the time of Alexander Graham Bell through Apple. There’s a cart covered in props pulled for an episode of “Dexter” and more for “The Mindy Project.”

“We have the largest properties department in Hollywood,” Machlin says, noting that other studios and production companies often rent things from Universal.

Another floor down and it’s the large prop floor, filled mostly with furniture, statues, musical instruments.

The organ Grandpa Munster played is here, tagged for rental by a production called “Cool Vamp.” A shoeshine stand is headed for Comedy Central’s “Key & Peele.” The loading docks outside have workers filling one truck with chairs, another with faux-armored shields, another with more boxes headed for “The Mindy Project.”

Other behind-the-scenes sights include a brief walk through the shops where craftsmen work building sets and special items. The wood shop smells of fresh sawdust, the metal shop screams of twisted materials, the molding shop displays a wall of fake brick paneling that Universal can whip up as needed, 150 types, including one named “murder brick” for use in your shady back alley scenes.

The tram stops next at Stage 44 and one of the main sets for NBC’s “Parenthood.” The set is dark today, no shooting going on, so we’re free to walk around the home of Zeek and Camille Braverman, looking at the books on their coffee table, the notes on their refrigerator, with a security guard trailing us to make sure nothing is put out of place.

“The thing people love most is we get to walk around,” Machlin says of the reactions he’s heard most from guests on the VIP Experience. “We get to stop and visit sets and a soundstage. And they’re fans of particular things that we show them, not just the modern movies and TV shows, but the history too.”

THRILLS AND MEALS

Another benefit of the VIP ticket is that your personal guide is also there to escort your group to the front of the line. And unlike the regular front-of-the-line pass, which goes for $129-$159 depending on the time of year, you can go to the front of the line as many times as you like for as many rides as you like. So in quick succession we blaze through the rides based on “Jurassic Park,” “The Mummy” and “Transformers,” and then head for lunch.

A gourmet VIP lunch, of course, prepared by Universal’s executive chef and served in a private dining room. After polishing off a plate that included New York strip steak, shrimp cocktail and various other tasty treats – credit another $40 of your ticket here – we slide into a chair next to Balsamo and Chapman to ask them what they thought of the VIP treatment so far.

“Key words? Heaven. Amazing,” says Balsamo, who lives in London but plans to move to Chicago, where Chapman lives, after they are married. “Ever since I did it last year I would never visit without doing the VIP tour.

“For me it was the fact that you can get out and experience things more,” he says.

“Like the clock tower,” Chapman adds of the walk-around at the courthouse used for “Back to the Future” and before that, such films as “To Kill Aa Mockingbird.”

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